The British government has named a Ugandan-born cleric, the Right Reverend John Sentamu, as the first black archbishop in the near 500-year history of the Church of England.
Sentamu, 56, a former judge who is now Bishop of Birmingham, was on Friday appointed Archbishop of York, the church's second highest position after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who leads the worldwide Anglican communion.
Diocesan bishops within the Church of England are appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the prime minister.
PHOTO: AP
Williams recently appointed him to a committee formed to try to mend a rift in the church caused by the New Hampshire diocese's decision to appoint an openly homosexual bishop, V. Gene Robinson.
Addressing a London news conference, Sentamu called for reconciliation on the issue that has brought the church close to schism, urging more traditionalist African primates not to break with the Anglican communion over Robinson's appointment.
"What I hope is that when people violently disagree with one another in the same family, they will find a language for living together and ways of talking to one another," he said.
But Sentamu said he stood by the Lambeth Resolution of 1998, which rejects homosexual practice as "incompatible with scripture" and rules out gay marriage in church.
A noted campaigner against racism and gun crime, Sentamu is a charismatic figure who has become known as both a visionary and an able teacher.
Raised one of 13 children near the Ugandan capital, Kampala, Sentamu was an outspoken critic of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, which earned him a term in jail. In 1974, he spent several months under house arrest before leaving Uganda for Britain.
He was ordained as a priest five years later and became Bishop of Birmingham in 2002.
Church spokesman Jonathan Jennings said Sentamu is the first black person to hold such a senior position in the history of the Church of England since its founder King Henry VIII broke with the Vatican nearly 500 years ago over his desire to divorce his first wife, Katherine of Aragon.
Sentamu succeeds the Most Reverend David Hope, who resigned last year to spend his last years before retirement working as a parish priest.
In a statement issued by his Lambeth Palace office, Williams said Sentamu "is someone who has always combined a passion for sharing the gospel with a keen sense of the problems and challenges of our society, particularly where racism is concerned."
Sentamu studied law at Uganda's Makerere University and was later appointed a judge in Uganda's High Court. He has a doctorate in theology from Selwyn College at Cambridge University and trained for the priesthood at the city's Ridley Hall.
In 1997, he became an adviser to an inquiry into the bungled police investigation of the 1993 killing of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. The inquiry concluded that London police were institutionally racist.
More recently, he has led demonstrations against the U.S.-led war in Iraq and campaigned for more help for workers from the collapsed car maker MG Rover.
His wife, Margaret, works for the Archbishops' Council; the couple have two adult children.
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